Readings for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Isaiah 22:19-23 | Romans 11:33-36 | Matthew 16:13-20
On Romans 11:33-36 – the inscrutable mystery of God
Throughout the summer, we have been wrestling with and trying to comprehend St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Many throughout Christian history have done the same. Inside the letter, St. Paul is trying to comprehend the Mystery of God, especially how God’s love is present and at work in our lives. His main response has to do with God’s righteousness (God being faithful to being God – love beyond all being) and justification, which is the believer sharing in God’s righteousness by God’s love revealed in and saving us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God’s righteousness includes mystery – “God being faithful to who God is” means God remains Incomprehensible Mystery utterly transcending mind and existence.
In today’s second reading, St. Paul acclaims and praises the the infinitely deep mystery of God: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given him anything that he may be repaid?’ For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36). The praise that St. Paul offers God rests on an amazement that stuns the soul into silence, a contemplative silence, which is when the interior space does not focus on thinking but rests in the love of God who transcends all and does marvelous things utterly beyond anything thinkable, imaginable, or possible.
What does divine transcendence mean for righteousness, justification by faith, and the law? It is a recognition that no law, custom, ritual, moral code, race, culture, or even thinking itself can grasp, possess, understand, or contain God. No religion controls God. No government, culture, or race has any final word on God, especially a word that condemns any other culture, race, or people. God’s mystery transcends and so relativizes the law.
Second, this means we cannot ever put any limits on God’s love for us. This is relevant in the context of Paul’s discussion about Israel’s rejection of Jesus. We cannot ever say that anyone is outside of the love of God. Indeed, the church has never formally pronounced that anyone is in hell. But we formally announce that many, many people are in heaven when we canonize saints. God’s love is far deeper, grander, more tender, more all-encompassing, and merciful than we can conceive. We cannot understand just how much we do not understand the mercy of God. This is good news! For there is reliable and infinite hope for everyone, even the most recalcitrant, unjust, and selfish people in our lives. No one is beyond the reach of God in Christ.
Frank Matera comments, “this text expresses Paul’s wonder and astonishment as he stands in awe before the mystery of God’s saving economy that embraces Gentile and Jew alike. The text begins with three observations about God: (1) the inexpressible richness of God’s wisdom and knowledge, (2) God’s inscrutable judgments, (3) God’s mysterious ways. It then asks three rhetorical questions. The first question (‘who has known the mind of the Lord?’) corresponds to the third observation; the second (‘who has been his counselor?’) corresponds to the second observation; and the third (‘who has given him anything?’) corresponds to the first observation. The reading concludes with a doxology that praises God as the origin and goal of all things.” The rhetorical questions serve to emphasize the incomprehensibility of God.
“The ending of Romans 11 points to the mystery of the divine economy that has been revealed in Jesus Christ. To be sure, Paul understands something of that mystery inasmuch as it has been revealed to him through the gospel. In light of the gospel, however, he also comprehends how little humans know of God’s ways. Who would have thought that God would bring about salvation through the death and resurrection of his Son? Who would have thought that God’s economy of salvation would embrace Gentiles as well as Jews?” (Frank Matera)
We do not grasp the holy mystery that is God. Instead, through language and thought, we tend to bring God down to our size. We assume God is a person like we are persons and has
standards like our standards. But this way of thinking makes God into a mental object. We turn God into a doctrinal idol. Even worse, many people today talk about God as if they have God all figured out and use this god (who is a mental object they created) to validate their own opinions. We miss the real God and become closed to the gratuitous and generous divine love. Paul seeks to remind us that when it comes to God, it is best to let go of our thinking and enjoy the Love of God by inner silence and faith.